Collette, Tonibyname of Antonia Collette ( born November 1, 1972 , Sydney, New South Wales, AustraliaAustralian actress known for her metamorphic performances in a wide range of roles.

Collette was raised in the Sydney suburb of Blacktown. At age 16 she accepted a scholarship from the Australian Theatre for Young People (1989), and she later briefly attended the National Institute of Dramatic Art. She dropped out to accept her first film role, in Spotswood (1992), opposite Anthony Hopkins and Russell Crowe. She made her first significant foray into theatre as Sonya in the Sydney Theatre Company production of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya (1992).

Her rollicking turn as the overweight, unhappy title character in Muriel’s Wedding (1994) brought Collette to international attention, and a spate of supporting roles in films, including Emma (1996), Clockwatchers (1997), and Velvet Goldmine (1998), followed. Her performance in The Sixth Sense (1999)—in which she evinced the distress of a mother whose son can see ghosts—brought her an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress. She received a Tony Award nomination for The Wild Party (2000), her Broadway debut. Though occasionally relegated to one-dimensional roles in thrillers such as Shaft (2000) and Changing Lanes (2002), Collette won accolades for the gravitas she brought to ancillary characters in About a Boy (2002) and The Hours (2002).

Her musical talents were brought to the fore in Connie and Carla (2004), a comedy in which she played a woman hiding from the mob by impersonating a male drag performer. Though that film was panned, Collette eked positive notices for the ostensibly slight In Her Shoes (2005), in which she was featured as the dowdy sister to Cameron Diaz’s promiscuous wastrel. Her role in the ensemble comedy Little Miss Sunshine (2006), in which she played the matriarch of a dysfunctional clan attempting to shepherd its youngest member to a beauty pageant, earned her a Golden Globe nomination for best supporting actress. She earned another Golden Globe nomination and an Emmy nomination for best supporting actress in a television movie for Tsunami: The Aftermath (2006). Collette later took supporting roles in the dramas TowelheadEvening(2007) and The Black BalloonTowelhead(20082007)and , the horror film Fright Night (2011), and the quirky comedy Jesus Henry Christ (2012).

Collette mined the fraught territory of mental illness for laughs in the darkly comic television series United States of Tara (2009–11). Her role as the central character, a Midwestern mother suffering from dissociative identity disorder, demanded that Collette evoke an ever-shifting array of personalities. Though the antics of hser her character’s “alters” often resulted in amusing situations, Collette managed to consistently reveal the pathos beneath the slapstick. She received for her efforts the Emmy Award (2009) and the Golden Globe (2010) for best actress in a comedy seriesfor her efforts.